The Old Gray Barn Is Getting a Facelift

One of the joys (and responsibilities) of Darlington is that it has a number of buildings on the property.  Four, to be specific. In addition to the brick and clapboard main house there are two wooden barns—one originally designed to hold a carriage, and the other for farm equipment and livestock.  There is also a brick workhouse built for doing laundry and cooking in warmer weather.  All the structures on the property date from the first decades of the nineteenth century and are original.

The old gray barn last July, pre-restoration, festooned with
forty-eight star flags in honor of Independence Day

Since buying Darlington more than fifteen years ago we have done a lot of work to the buildings and grounds.  Not only did we want to, Dear Reader, as we believe it is our responsibility to sensitively care for such treasures, but their deteriorating condition required it.  As I wrote in my introductory post on Darlington, the condition of the house and property was one of benign neglect when we bought it.  The previous owner, Mrs. Proctor, was in her late nineties at the time and had been living in what is euphemistically referred to as "a home" for several years.  Darlington had sat empty for five (or more) years, used only occasionally by relatives when visiting the area.

The barn one month later.  Work has begun.
Note absence of chimney on right hand side of the roof . . .

During their ownership of Darlington, the Proctors, people of means who appreciated the historic significance of the house and property, took good care of it.  However, by the time we bought it from them little had been done to the house or grounds since the 1970s, other than putting up an occasional coat of paint and regularly mowing the lawns.  Darlington had become a sleeping, overgrown beauty, drifting into decay . . .

The barn's west elevation.  The three windows' sashes have been
removed for restoration and reglazing.  The ghost of the roof of a
lean-to that once adjoined this facade can be seen sloping down from
the right.  We are going to open the boarded-up window on the
first floor and replace the sliding door to its right with a matching
window that will restore the facade's original two-over-two
symmetrical window placement

Our first priority was to focus on the main house, which required major and extensive restoration, and also a complete updating of all of its systems.  As the urgency of those repairs subsided, we turned our sights to the other buildings on the property.  Our next project was a ground-up restoration of the carriage barn, which we have repurposed as a gardening barn, filling it with tools and rakes and enough Guy Wolff clay pots to keep a nursery happy for years.  We have also done a substantial amount of restoration to Darlington's work house and hope to have it completed later this year when the fellow who has done the work on it so far frees up from other commitments.

Our restored carriage barn.  We plan on using the same
green paint color on the windows and doors of the large barn

More recently we have turned our attention to what we call the "large barn" at Darlington.  It was built in around 1840 as a working barn and originally held the property's farm machinery and equipment, along with the livestock that was used in managing the 165 acres that Darlington once encompassed.  Today it is where we keep our cars, large clay pots in the winter, stacks of firewood, and our refuse and recycling containers.  In other words, it functions as a large modern-day garage.

The south facade of the barn.  We are removing the unfortunate 1960s
garage door and the inappropriate horizontal window, along with the small
sliding door on the right.  The rusty tin roof, which dates from the
late-nineteenth century, is in good shape, and will be scraped and painted

When we bought Darlington the large barn was packed to the rafters with seventy years' of the Procters' accumulated stuff (they were great pack rats) and infested with insect damage.  A lean-to addition had been cobbled onto it in the 1940s, and the building's Greek Revival integrity had been further undignified by the addition of inappropriate windows and an ugly 1960s-era garage door.  Although we quickly eliminated the lean-to, it took us until last year finally to bite the bullet and begin working on the barn in earnest.  (When I write "we" here I must clarify that it is not Boy and I who are the ones actually doing the work to the barn.  No, we are fortunate to have others who are skillfully doing it on our behalf under the careful supervision of Isaiah Cornini, the consultant we have been working with ever since we bought Darlington.  Mr. Cornini advises us and designs and manages all of the restoration projects we do on the property.)

Another view of the barn, showing both the south and east
elevations.  We are going to paint the siding and cornice
in a period-appropriate mustard/ochre color; sashes and
doors will be painted the green used on the carriage barn

So why did we wait so long to tackle the large barn's restoration, you might ask, Dear Reader?  There were several reasons.  First, the financial crash of 2008 happened, which put the brakes on my interest in taking on such a large project, and second, it took us for ever to decide that we didn't need to do as thorough (and expensive) a restoration to the barn as we have done to the other buildings on the property.  Rather, we decided that it was sufficient (and less financially punishing) to do a careful and thoughtful shoring up of the structure, replace its later, less-than-successful remuddlings, and update the building's systems for modern-day requirements.  When we are finished we will have returned the barn to a close approximation of what it looked like when it was originally built almost 180 years ago.

Another view of the barn's east facade.  We have
already removed an unsightly cinder-block chimney that
was added in the 1940s.  The boarded-up windows on the
second storey are false ones, added for symmetry
when the barn was built.  We will replace the later
horizontal windows with sash windows, restoring the
facade's original two-over-two window symmetry,
similar to the building's west facade

Over the next several months I plan on posting about the barn's ongoing restoration and updating.  I am confident that when the work is completed the barn will, once again, be the handsome and dignified structure it once was and was always meant to be.

A later view of the barn's east facade showing the restoration of the
cornice underway where the cinder-block chimney once interrupted it

Won't you please join me in my journey?

All photographs by Reggie Darling

Reggie Revealed . . .

"Who is that man behind the curtain?

Wait a second—could that be Reggie Darling at the controls?
Image courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

"Is his name really Reggie Darling?  What kind of name is that?

"And who is this Boy Fenwick person?  And that adorable pug that Reggie sometimes shows on his blog—is his name really Pompey?

I suspect they'd be able to figure out who Reggie really is pretty quickly . . .
Image courtesy of CBS Television

"Where is Darlington House?  Is that its actual name?  Who names their houses, anyway?  Why is it that they never show full rooms, only vignettes?  Do you think they even live there?

"And all those stories about Reggie's family, do you think they really happened?

Same with this crew.  I'll bet that Reggie couldn't fool them, either!
Image courtesy of CBS Television

"How much of this stuff is made up?

"I can't find out anything about these guys when I Google them.  That's pretty strange, I think.  You can almost always find something about someone these days with a simple Internet search.  Not these two, though.  Except that blog—there are lots of links to that . . . but not to them.

"It all sounds kind of fishy to me . . ."

Well, Dear Reader, it has come time for me to answer some of these questions.  For, you see, Reggie has been revealed.  There is a certain design magazine on the newsstands now that spills the beans.  Reggie has been outed.

The magazine in which all is revealed . . .

And that's just fine with him.  Because, Reggie actually outed himself.  He agreed to use his "real" name in the story in the magazine because a lot of people already knew that Reggie wasn't the name he was born with, but rather a nom de plume.

Darlington House, as seen in the June 2013 issue of AD

Besides, he was quite pleased to have Darlington House featured in the magazine, and he thought it would be silly not to have his "real" name associated with it.  He's very proud of Boy Fenwick for appearing in Architectural Digest's pages, a coup for any decorator.  It doesn't get any better than that, Dear Reader.

Mr. Boy Fenwick standing at the front door
of Darlington House

"So," you may ask, "If you use made up names in your blog, Reggie, is everything else made up, too?"

Won't you please come into the front hall?

No.  Well, not really.  Other than coming up with playfully Wodehouse-ian names, most everything Reggie writes about is true, and actually happened.  From time to time, though, he does admit to playing around with some of the minor details (such as writing that MD drank scotch when in reality she drank Canadian Club).  But he does so mostly to perfect the voice in his stories.

Do make yourself comfortable in the drawing room.
Would you like something to drink?  A cocktail, perhaps?

"But why, Reggie, do you use a nom de plume?"

Because, Dear Reader, I prefer to keep this blog—a lifestyle one—separate from my very busy and demanding professional life in the financial services industry.  I have a whole "other" life that I prefer not to co-mingle with what I do here in my off hours, for fun.

Reggie is upstairs in the master bedroom straightening his tie
at the moment.  He'll be right down to meet you!

And I plan to keep it that way, too, Dear Reader, even though Reggie's secret it out.

Won't you please play along with me?

Photographs: Unless noted otherwise, all images courtesy of Architectural Digest magazine

An Afternoon at King Manor

After having spent a most enjoyable visit at the Bartow-Pell Mansion in the Bronx, Boy and I decided to fire up the family jalopy again and drive out to the far reaches of Jamaica, Queens, to explore King Manor, another one of New York City's historic house museums.

The approach to King Manor, located in Rufus King Park, Jamaica, Queens

King Manor is named after the Honorable Rufus King (1755-1827), a signer of the U.S. Constitution, a senator from the State of New York, the nation's first Ambassador to Great Britain, a land owner, and a gentleman farmer.  The house sits in Rufus King Park, an eleven-acre public space in what is today a working class residential and commercial stretch in Queens, New York.  The house is about a forty-minute drive from the UES.

   

Rufus King and his wife, Mary Alsop, purchased an eighteenth-century farmhouse with ninety acres in 1805, and they spent the next twenty years improving and enlarging the house and property, which today is known as King Manor.  The Kings also maintained a townhouse in Manhattan, where they lived during the colder months of the year, when they weren't in residence in Washington, D.C., or London.

An etching of the the Rufus King Manor
Jamaica, New York, ca. 1930
Image courtesy of Keith Sheridan Fine Art

By the time of Rufus King's death in 1827 the house had grown to twenty-nine rooms and sat in an estate of one hundred and twenty-two acres of gardens, fields, orchards, and forest.  Subsequent generations of the King family lived in the Manor until 1888, when the house and much of its contents, along with eleven acres of land, were sold to the city of Jamaica.  The property came under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation in 1898.

King Manor in 1950
Image courtesy of N.Y. City Department of Parks & Recreation

Within several years of King Manor being sold, houses and apartment buildings were built around the park's periphery.  Today the surrounding area is a combination of small apartment buildings and two-family houses, and large municipal buildings.  

The view across Jamaica Avenue, looking to the west

The entry to King Manor is from Jamaica Avenue, a busy thoroughfare that follows what had originally been a trail (known as the Yamecah Trail) established by the area's Lenape Native Americans long before Europeans colonized these shores.  The English, who took control of the area from the Dutch in the 1680s, named it Jameco, which was later changed to Jamaica.  There is no link between this part of Queens and the island in the Caribbean of the same name; that they share a name in common is entirely coincidental.

The view across Jamaica Avenue, looking to the east

Today there is little left on Jamaica Avenue from the time when the Kings lived in their house.  In the above photograph one can make out two towers of a brownstone Gothic Revival church standing between two hulking municipal buildings.  According to the young woman who gave us a tour of the house, it was in this church that the King family worshipped.  Well, not really.  Reggie has since learned from one of his perspicacious readers that the Kings worshipped in a different church, Grace Episcopal, that stands nearby.  Nonetheless, the church shown in the photograph is one of the few remainders of buildings that stood when the family was still in residence. 

The view into Rufus King Park from the rear of the house

Rufus King Park, which spreads out around and behind King Manor, is popular with and heavily used by residents of the surrounding area.  There were a lot of people in it the day we visited the house, running around and playing soccer and other ball games.

Architectural rendering of front elevation for the 1984
restoration of King Manor by Gibson Bauer Associates
Image courtesy of King Manor Association

King Manor underwent an extensive and careful restoration in the 1980s, and today the house is well cared for by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, with financial and other support from the worthy non-profit Historic House Trust of New York City.  King Manor is not one of the city's most popular historic house museums, given its location and the relative obscurity today of its once celebrated owners.  We were the only visitors to the house the afternoon we made our journey there.

An early twentieth-century postcard of King Manor.  Its Victorian
buff-and-brown paint scheme survived into the 1950s
Image courtesy of King Manor Association

In researching this post I came across numerous images of King Manor from different eras.

By the 1960s, the era of this postcard, the house was
painted white, with black shutters.  Note foundation plantings
and colorful flowerbeds full of annuals
Image courtesy of King Manor Association

It is interesting to see how the house and landscape evolved over the years, reflecting the changing tastes of the times and advances in historic restoration knowledge.

The house today, as painted in a scheme from the 1980s
restoration.  The foundation plantings are gone.

So, let's go inside and look around, shall we?

The main hall of the house features a handsome
Federal staircase with a mahogany banister

What strikes one when entering King Manor is that it is not a particularly "fine" house with articulated moldings or plasterwork that one would expect to see in a city house of its size.  It is a large country house that has been expanded over the years, and it functioned both as the seat of a family of consequence and as the hub of a large working farm.  The King's townhouse in Manhattan would have been a more refined dwelling, I believe.  King Manor's principal rooms are large and well proportioned, and overall the house is quite pleasant.  Were it not for the urban surroundings it sits in today, one could easily imagine living in it (assuming one had the substantial wherewithal required to do so).

The front parlor contains a marble fire-surround installed by the Kings
and a few pieces of Federal-period furniture

King Manor is only minimally furnished, and many of its secondary rooms have been set up as teaching installations, focusing on Rufus King's political activities.

Rufus King portrait by Gilbert Stuart, ca. 1820
Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

A copy of a portrait of Rufus King by Gilbert Stuart hangs in the house's front parlor.  The original is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.  Here is how the NPG describes the sitter on its website:

"Rufus King was one of the last of the Founding Fathers. A delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, an active framer of the Constitution, minister to Great Britain, opponent of the War of 1812, senator from New York, and the Federalist Party's last candidate for the presidency (overwhelmingly defeated by James Monroe in 1816), King had a public career that extended through the administrations of the first six presidents of the United States. His portrait was painted in 1819-20, a time when he tried to rouse opposition to the admission of Missouri as a slave state, defending before the Senate 'the natural liberty of man and its incompatibility with slavery in any shape.' John Quincy Adams recorded: 'He spoke with great power, and the great slaveholders . . . gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as they heard him.'"

In other words, Mr. King was a Very Big Deal in his day, and a man who did not shy away from controversy.

Turning back to the house, I rather liked the pretty cream jug and coffee can and saucer seen in the preceding photograph that were sitting on a desk in the front parlor.  Perhaps if I were to actually follow through on my "Coffee Can of the Week" series promise, I might do a post on the coffee can . . .

The house's commodious dining room was remodeled by the Kings to have an oval end, which our young docent said seated musicians for dances at the house.  The doors on either side of the window lead to small closets.

"The Dinner Party" by Henry Sargent, ca. 1821
Image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

King Manor's dining room's decoration has been loosely based on the interior depicted in the well-known painting "The Dinner Party" by the artist Henry Sargent.  I know of at least two other Federal-era historic house museums that have also looked to that painting for inspiration for their dining rooms: Homewood House in Baltimore (the subject of an earlier post of mine) and the Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston.

King Manor is notable for its library, shown in the preceding photograph.  At one time it held over 3,500 books, of which approximately 2,000 remain today behind the room's curtained cases.  A book collection of such size in America in the first decades of the nineteenth century would only have been possible for a person of substantial wealth.  To put it in perspective, Thomas Jefferson's library of 6,500 volumes was the largest library in private hands in America when he sold it to the U.S. Government in 1815 for the then staggering sum of $23,900.  It formed the nucleus of what is today the Library of Congress.

The woodwork and walls in King Manor's library were grained when the house was restored in the 1980s to approximate their original decoration.

A late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century
view of the library
Image courtesy of King Manor Association

The photograph of the library in the preceding photograph shows the room as it probably looked in the years leading up to when the Kings sold the house to the city of Jamaica.  I wonder where Rufus King's "favorite arm chair" is today?

The house's "gift shop" in the upstairs hall

Our tour ended in the upstairs hall, which has been somewhat haphazardly set up as a gift shop.  None of the upstairs rooms were open to the public when we visited the house.  We peeked into one or two of them, however, and saw that they were mostly filled with furniture (perhaps including the elusive "favorite arm chair") stored under protective sheets.  Assuming much of the covered furniture was sold to the city of Jamaica by the Kings when they vacated the house, I suspect a subsequent reinterpretation of King Manor's interior may bring some of it back into the rooms, which would have been furnished during the Kings final days with a mix of period furnishings, as seen in the early photograph of the library.

With our tour completed, we bid our guide goodbye and left the house through the door seen under the porch in the preceding photograph.  The dependencies in the rear of the house were once devoted to service activities, notably cooking and laundry.

Architectural rendering of the east elevation for the 1984
restoration by Gibson Bauer Associates
Image courtesy of King Manor Association

In its day, King Manor would have been supported by numerous barns, stables, and outbuildings required to house the horses, carriages and buggies, livestock and farm equipment necessary to manage a large working country estate.  These have long since been torn down.

A view of the rear of the Manor, ca. 1936
Image courtesy of N.Y. City Department of Parks & Recreation

And with that I leave you, Dear Reader, with this charming old photograph of a view of the rear of King Manor.  We enjoyed our visit to the house and appreciate that we are fortunate today that it still stands, a stalwart reminder of the dignity and beauty that the countryside surrounding New York City once possessed.

Reggie's appreciation for King Manor, and the preservation of it and other historic house museums found in the public parks of New York City made possible by the philanthropic Historic House Trust of New York, has motivated him to make a donation to the Trust in support of its worthy and laudable efforts.  Should you be so fortunate to find yourself in New York, Dear Reader, Reggie encourages you to set aside an afternoon to visit one of the city's historic house museums, and to consider leaving a contribution when you do so above and beyond the modest admission price in order to help support their ongoing existence.

King Manor Museum
King Park, Jamaica, New York
(718) 206-0545
www.kingmanor.org

New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
www.nycgovparks.org

The Historic House Trust of New York
830 Fifth Avenue, Room 203
New York, NY 10065
(212) 360-8282
www.historichousetrust.org

An Afternoon at the Bartow-Pell Mansion

As should come as no surprise to his readers, Reggie rather enjoys visiting historic house museums.  He has happily done so his entire life, starting from when he was a boy growing up in Washington, D.C., a metropolis rich in historic house museums both within its boundaries and in the surrounding counties of Virginia and Maryland.

The front of the Bartow-Pell Mansion in Pelham Bay Park

Reggie visits historic houses because he appreciates the beauty of their architecture and contents, their historical significance, and the window they provide on how this country's elite lived in earlier times.  The decoration of such houses has, in some cases, informed Reggie's choices in furnishing his own residences.

The house has a large entrance hall with a
dramatic, sweeping staircase

This past weekend we found ourselves in Manhattan, again, instead of at our beloved Darlington House in the Hudson River Valley.  With a lazy two days ahead of us with no appointments or obligations we decided to visit a number of the city's historic house museums.

The hall was once heated by this
early nineteenth century iron stove

New York is blessed with (or burdened by, depending on who you are speaking with) a large collection of historic houses open to the public, many of which are located in its public parks.  Most are operated in tandem by the Historic House Trust of New York City and the City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation.

The north parlor of the house's grand double parlor

The Historic House Trust of New York City is a worthy, not-for-profit organization that provides essential support for houses of architectural and cultural significance that reside within the city's parks and that are open to the public.

The south parlor of the house's double parlor

The Trust has rescued many of the city's house museums from dereliction in recent years, a period in which the City's resources available for supporting such institutions has dwindled.  Reggie is most grateful that the Trust has stepped up to the plate to ensure the survival of these house museums.

Looking north through a doorway leading into
the south parlor and the north parlor beyond

Reggie encourages his readers to consider making a donation to the Historic House Trust of New York City (see link above), as it relies on support from the likes of Reggie and his fellow travelers.

An orangery designed by Delano & Aldrich and
added to the house by the International Garden Club
in the early twentieth century

Now, getting down to the inspiration for this posting.  The first house we visited during our city weekend was the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in Pelham Bay Park, in the Bronx.  It was an easy half hour's drive from the UES of Manhattan.

Mrs. Charles Frederick Hoffman, painted ca. 1930
(née Zelia Kumbhaar Preston)
Mrs. Hoffman was the founder and President of
the International Garden Club and
the Newport Garden Club, and
the rescuer of the Bartow-Pell Mansion

The Bartow-Pell Mansion sits on a handsome parcel of land facing east across Pelham Bay toward Long Island Sound.

A sitting room on the ground floor, opening off the main hall

The land on which the house stands was purchased by Thomas Pell in 1654 from the local Siwanoy Indians, and is at the core of what had once been the 10,000 acre Manor of Pelham.  

The house's dining room, with its table laid for dinner

Thomas Pell's nephew John Pell built a house near the site of the present mansion in 1671, in which four generations of Pells lived until the manor was divided shortly after the Revolutionary War.

Another view of the dining room.
What's for dinner?

In 1836, Pell family descendant Robert Bartow, a well-connected, wealthy publisher and printer from New York City, purchased part of the original manor and built a grand house in the then fashionable Greek Revival style.  The imposing gray stone house is composed of a three-storey main block flanked by two wings, and is what is today known as the Bartow-Pell Mansion.

Let's go upstairs and see what's up there!

When the house was built the surrounding area was bucolic and undeveloped save for a number of other large country estates belonging to the city's elite.  The house stood among pastureland, orchards, and lawns sloping down to Pelham Bay.

Contrary to what many people think, such
niches were not meant to allow for carrying coffins
downstairs, but rather to hold statues as shown here

The Bartows divided their time between their country house and a townhouse in Manhatttan, where they spent the cooler months of the year.  Mr Bartow and his wife, the former Maria Lorillard, had seven children.

An early nineteenth century Bartow family
needlework mourning picture

The house remained in the Bartow family for fifty years, by which time the area was no longer as desirable as it once had been for those seeking the serenity and quietude of country estate living.

  

A view into the upstairs family sitting room

In 1888 the Bartow's children sold the estate to the City of New York as part of the new Pelham Bay Park.  The house and its grounds entered into a period of neglect and decay.

The quality of the textiles, upholstery,
and carpets used throughout the house
is impressive

In 1914, the good ladies of the International Garden Club* adopted the mansion as their clubhouse, ensuring its survival at a time when neighboring estates were being demolished.

  

Another view of the upstairs sitting room
(Reggie admits he snuck across the barrier to take this photograph)

The Garden Club commissioned the architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich to modernize sections of the house and to restore its Greek Revival details.  

The supremely elegant master bedroom, with bedstead attributed
to Charles-Honoré Lannuier

In 1916 the Garden Club installed an elegant walled and terraced garden behind the house, leading out to lawns and fields sloping down to Pelham Bay.  

One of the house's secondary bedrooms

Further plans to establish an array of formal gardens were interrupted by the onset of World War I, and were never completed.  The Club hired landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman to redesign the gardens in 1927.

Another secondary bedroom, with freshly laid sea grass matting on the floor

In 1936, during one of the hottest summers on record, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia moved his staff north of the city to the house, and directed his affairs of the City from a telephone bank installed in the basement.

The rear facade of the house showing the handsome ironwork balcony
original to the house

Ten years later, in 1946, the International Garden Club opened the Bartow-Pell Mansion to the public as a house museum.

A late winter's view out over the terraced gardens in the rear of the house.
Pelham Bay (and the Pelham Bay Parkway) can be glimpsed in the distance

Today, the interiors have been thoughtfully and carefully restored to an approximation of their 19th century appearance.

Looking back towards the house from the terraced garden

A dramatic, free-standing spiral staircase rises from the house's entrance hall, connecting parlors and the dining room on the ground floor with the family and staff bedrooms above.  Mahogany doors open onto spacious double parlors on the ground floor with handsome carved marble fireplaces and tall windows that look out onto the elegant, terraced garden.  The house includes a large, Colonial Revival style orangery that was added by the Garden Club during the Delano & Aldrich renovation.

The front facade of the house showing its original
second storey iron balconies.  It is missing the shutters
that once hung on its windows.
(Reggie would prefer it if there wasn't so much asphalt
covering the ground in front of the house...)

The Bartow-Pell Mansion's interiors are beautifully furnished with period antique furniture made by New York City's most noteworthy cabinetmakers of the early nineteenth century, including examples from the workshops of Duncan Phyfe, Charles-Honoré Lannuier, and Michael Allison, among others.

A view of the front of the Bartow-Pell Mansion, ca. 1870
Image courtesy of the City of N.Y. Department of Parks & Recreation

Furniture, decorations, and art have been donated to the house museum and also loaned to it by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of the City of New York.

The empty decorative niche in the facade
of the front of the house

The Bartow-Pell Mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is both a National Landmark and a New York City Landmark.

The estate's coach house, built in 1842, was not open
the day Reggie visited the Bartow-Pell Mansion

The house and gardens are still operated by the International Garden Club.

The sign at the entrance gates to the
Bartow-Pell estate

Reggie enjoyed visiting the Bartow-Pell Mansion and its gardens, and he encourages his readers to visit the estate as well.  Doing so provides a unique opportunity to take in a rare survivor of refined and elegant country house living by members of the city's highest elite during the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

* Reggie has not been able to find any information about the International Garden Club, beyond what is contained on the Bartow-Pell Mansion's website.  He would be most grateful to any of his readers who know more about the Club if they would share it with him and his readers.

A special thanks to the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum & Gardens and the Historic House Trust of New York City.  Reggie has consulted and relied on resources published by both entities in this posting.

Except where noted, all photographs by Reggie Darling and Boy Fenwick.